The Freedom of a Christian, 1520

Martin Luther, Timothy J. Wengert, Timothy J. Wengert

• Publisher: Fortress Press
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781506413518
• eBook ISBN:
  9781506413525
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

Timothy J. Wengert skillfully provides a clear understanding of the historical context from which the treatise The Freedom of a Christian and his accompanying Letter to Pope Leo X arose. As controversy concerning his writings grew, Luther was instructed to write a reconciliation-minded letter to Pope Leo X (14751521). To this letter he appended a nonpolemical tract describing the heart of his beliefs, The Freedom of a Christian. Luthers Latin version added an introduction and a lengthy appendix not found in the German edition. The two editions arose out of the different audiences for them: the one addressed to theologians, clerics, and church leaders (for whom Latin was the common language), and one addressed to the German-speaking public, which included the nobility, townsfolk, many from the lesser clergy, and others who could read (or have Luthers writings read to them).

This volume is excerpted from The Annotated Luther series, Volume 1. Each volume in the series contains new introductions, annotations, illustrations, and notes to help shed light on Luthers context and to interpret his writings for today. The translations of Luthers writings include updates of Luthers Works, American Edition, or new translations of Luthers German or Latin writings.

Image Credits

466, 479, 483, 509, 513, 517: Courtesy of the Digital Image Archive,

Pitts Theology Library, Candler School of Theology, Emory University.

The Freedom of a Christian, 1520 (Timothy J. Wengert)

a.See WA 7:40, “E”: Epistola Lutheriana ad Leonem Decimum summum pontificem. Liber de Christiana libertate, continens summam Christianae doctrinae, quo ad formandam mentem, & ad intelligendam Euangelii vim, nihil absolutius, nihil conducibilius neque a veteribus neque a recentioribus scriptoribus perditum est. Tu Christianae lector, relege iterum atque iterum, & Christum imbibe. Recognitus Wittembergae (Wittenberg: Melchior Lotter, 1521). English: A Lutheran Letter to Pope Leo X. A Book on Christian Freedom, Containing the Sum of Christian Teaching, Concerning Which Nothing More Absolute or More in Line with Either Ancient or More Recent Writers Has Been Produced for Forming the Mind and for Understanding the Power of the Gospel. You, Christian Reader, Reread This Again and Again and Drink in Christ. Reedited in Wittenberg. For the publication, authorships, and dating of these printings, see James Hirstein’s article in Revue d’histoire et de philosophie religieuses (forthcoming).

b.Birgit Stolt, Studien zu Luthers Freiheitstraktat mit besonderer Rücksicht auf das Verhältnis der lateinischen und der deutschen Fassung zu einander und die Stilmittel der Rhetorik (Stockholm: Almzvist & Wiksell, 1969).

c.Ibid.

d.Using marginal notes found in WA 7:40, “D”: Epistola Lutheriana ad Leonem Decimum summum pontificem. Dissertatio de libertate Christiana per autorem recognita Wittembergae (Basel: Adam Petri, 1521). See the Introduction above.

e.See above, p. 264, n. 11.

f.Throughout this letter, marginal notes on the letter’s structure follow the structural analysis made by Stolt.

g.The first time was the preface to the Explanations of the Ninety-Five Theses of 1518. See WA 1:527–29.

h.Matt. 7:3.

i.John 8:1–11.

j.See Matt. 23:33, 13, 17; and John 8:44, respectively.

k.Acts 13:10.

l.Phil. 3:2; 2 Cor. 11:13; 2:17 (following the Latin; NRSV: “peddlers”).

m.Classical Latin authors often compared salt (especial “black salt”) with sharpness (e.g., Pliny [the Elder] (23–79), Historia naturalis, 10, 72, 93, par. 198) and sarcasm (e.g., Catullus [c. 84–54 BCE], 13, 5). See also Matt. 5:13.

n.Jer. 48:10 (Vulgate).

o.Literally, “brothers.”

p.Matt. 10:16; Dan. 6:16; and Ezek. 2:6, respectively.

q.See John 6:9.

r.Jer. 51:9 (Vulgate).

s.Virgil (70–19 BCE), Georgics, 1, 514.

t.The family of Judas Iscariot, as he was labeled in John 17:12.

u.See above, p. 475.

v.See Jer. 3:8.

w.Rev. 22:11.

x.Luther is making a play on words: “Ecce … Eck” (Behold … Eck).

y.See Cicero, De Amicitia, 91 (25).

z.See, e.g., the reference to “Roman ignorance” in Maurus Servius Honoratus (4th–5th century), Commentary on the Aeneid of Virgil, 8, 597.

a.See, e.g., 1 Pet. 5:5 and James 4:6.

b.2 Tim. 2:9, an indirect reference to the tract, The Freedom of a Christian, to which this letter became attached.

c.Isa. 3:12 (Vulgate).

d.See Luther’s Address to the Christian Nobility (1520), above, pp. 387–89.

e.Luke 1:52.

f.See above, p. 479.

g.This subhead is not in sixteenth-century editions of the tract.

h.The same Latin word is translated here “virtues” or “power.”

i.With few exceptions recorded in footnotes, all subtitles come from ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Publisher's Note
• Series Introduction
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Image Credits